Restore History as a subject or funding is history (Australia)

STATE Governments will be under pressure to reinstate history as a compulsory separate subject in schools or risk losing nearly $13 billion in federal funding as a summit of experts meet in Canberra today.

But in launching the history summit last night, federal Education Minister Julie Bishop told the 23 participants she was not in favour of ''creating some form of an official'' history.

''We start, however, with a strong view that Australian history should be a compulsory stand-alone subject during some period of high school,'' she said.